1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to object holders in general and in particular to method and apparatus for holding fishing rods.
2. Description of Related Art
In many fields it is commonly required to hold an object while a user's hands are busy doing other activities. One such activity is fishing, in particular fly fishing, where a fisher may frequently need to hold a fishing rod while leaving one or more of their hands free to do another activity.
In particular, when the fisher is retrieving their fishing line rapidly, one common method that may be used is called stripping in which a user pulls the fishing line in quickly by hand to allow it to rest on the ground. A common stripping method is to hold the fishing rod and line with one hand and pulling in the fishing line with the other hand. During stripping, the fisher uses alternating hands to pull in or hold the fishing line.
It will be appreciated that during conventional stripping methods, a user has only one hand available to pull or retrieve the fishing line as the other hand is required to hold the fishing rod. Using conventional stripping methods, the user's other hand is commonly held at a steady location on the fishing rod so as to maintain control of the fishing rod. Accordingly, the user's rod hand is only commonly utilized to hold or stabilize the fishing line between alternating pulls by the user's free hand.
An additional difficulty with conventional stripping methods is that as the user is required to intermittently hold both the fishing rod and the fishing line with the same hand at the same time, a greater degree of manual dexterity is required. Accordingly, there will be a greater risk of a user dropping the fishing rod, fishing line or both during such periods. This may be particularly possible at times when the user is transitioning the fishing line to and from their rod holding hand.